Tuning Into the Alexa Frequency

Ask Auntie Alexa.

For Gen Z, and subsequent generations of kids, AI-powered smart speakers, like Amazon’s Echo, are already an ubiquitous part of daily life. Amazon’s virtual auntie, Alexa, is now integrated into every part of our kids’ lives, helping them do everything from the mundane (running appliances, turning on lamps), learn (help with homework), and have fun (jokes, start storytime, play music) and even helping them eat their favorite food, like pizza from Domino’s.

Brands looking to engage with Gen Z and subsequent generations are diving into the Amazon Echo ecosystem, creating some of today’s most popular Alexa Skills for kids. For example, kid content powerhouses Cartoon Network, NatGeo Kids, and Nickelodeon have built Alexa skills that read stories, share facts, and play interactive games.

And Disney, with its kid-focused entertainment film and TV franchises (including Marvel and Star Wars), offers kids a wide variety of interactive content, including conversational experiences with their favorite characters.

Alexa, Kids & Data Privacy

While smart speakers, like the Echo, are already pervasive, brands need to think first about how they will protect kids' privacy before developing an Alexa Skill. Today’s kids (and their parents) take privacy and data collection very seriously, and if you violate their trust, they will hold it against your brand.

Since 2013, the FTC has required apps, websites, and platforms that collect any form of biometric data from children, including their voices, to obtain verifiable parental consent. In 2017, the FTC issued new guidance for AI voice assistants allowing providers to collect verbal commands required to activate a device, as long as the audio files are quickly deleted.

Furthermore, as required by COPPA (and the forthcoming CCPA) compliance, voice app developers must provide notice to parents including clear notice of its collection and use of audio files and its deletion policy, in its privacy policy.

Building Alexa Skills

The goal for any brand wanting to use smart speakers as a kid marketing strategy is pretty simple: create Alexa Skills that are actually useful. It sounds simplistic, but it’s true.

Create content and experiences to stand-out, whether it’s hilarious, snarky, or a must-see. Giving kids the means to connect, share, and thrive in their community, will make them your powerful ally.

Before your brand begins development of an Alexa Skill for kids, determine if it meets one of these core motivators for kids:

• Will this Alexa Skill help them solve problems or complete a task?
• Will this Alexa Skill that helps them connect with their entertainment?
• Will this Alexa Skill that helps them look cool to their friends?
• Will this Alexa Skill that helps them explore their interests?
• Will this Alexa Skill have a conversational (voice) UX that is easy for kids to understand?
• Will this Alexa Skill impact a child in a positive or negative manner?

For today’s kids, swimming in content, coupled with an increasingly narrow attention span, to get your voice product on their radar and hold their attention, your Alexa Skill must be able to meet whatever intrinsic need they have-- at any given moment.

Alexa, Let’s Get Started!

What sets Gen Z kids apart is an unrelenting relationship with both information and emerging technologies, born of impatience and the confidence to act. And it’s exactly this youthful impatience that requires brands to take their ethical responsibilities seriously when designing Alexa Skills. 

The power of voice--whether from a human or an AI-driven speaker-- carries emotional resonance with children. Above all else, remember that these Alexa Skills will impact the minds, emotions, and confidence of the young minds using these devices.